


Captain Bluebear

by ViolaWay



Category: Video Blogging & YouTube RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe, Character Study, Cute, Fluff, M/M, age gap
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-20
Updated: 2013-06-20
Packaged: 2017-12-15 14:02:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 638
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/850385
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ViolaWay/pseuds/ViolaWay
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The thing about Dan is, he grew up fast.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Captain Bluebear

**Author's Note:**

> i don't even know what this is i just love dan howell

The thing about Dan is, he grew up fast. He likes to be in control, and he appears to be older than his eighteen years would suggest. Phil knows, because he’s five years older than Dan but it never feels that way. Dan can’t stand the idea of being treated like a child. It’s probably a combination of the dimples and the fact that he loved Winnie the Pooh until an age that he will never admit to, but everyone used to treat him like a toddler. Including Phil.

See, Phil and Dan met when Phil was ten and Dan was five, because they went to the same Primary School and even though the older kids normally avoided the younger ones like they were the plague, Phil found Dan. He’d always find Dan.

They were best friends but Phil was always taller, always cleverer, always more experienced. Until he wasn’t. Then Dan turned sixteen and started getting girlfriends and Phil somehow found himself pining over a boy who was no longer a child, but a man who was entirely straight. Dan would talk about sex and Phil had never had it, and Dan would talk about smoking and Phil would try it, only to choke on the smoke and end up coughing unattractively. Dan would go to parties and get drunk, and sometimes he’d drag Phil along but that was normally as the designated driver, because Phil was the one who didn’t do any of that.

Abruptly, Phil felt younger. Smaller. Like a child.

It was a year until he built up the courage, and now they’re _them._ Now all the misconceptions are gone, and they’re together. But Phil still sees Dan as someone vastly more experienced, unattainable. Even after a year of dating—and thirteen years of friendship, has it really been that long?—he’s not really sure he knows Dan.

He finds it on a Thursday, when they’re packing for Dan to go to University. Phil’s moving in with him, in Manchester, which is a big step but feels small: natural, even.

It shouldn’t be surprising, but it is. Loads of adults hang on to things from their childhood, to little things that mark the innocence from the beginning of their life. But for some reason, Phil never expected Dan to hang onto all that, because it’s silly and trivial and that’s everything that Dan’s not. Still, there it is. It’s obviously old: dog-eared and faded, but the blue still seems bright. A little teddy bear, that’s what it is, with words stitched onto the top: “Captain Bluebear”. Phil lets out a sound that is half-sob, half-laugh, because soppy as it is, he’s imagining a little Dan curled up in bed around his teddy, and it’s that that brings him to a realisation. 

Dan isn’t his age.

He’s reluctant to admit that that’s how he’s been defining Dan for all these years. By the age Dan is, by the age Dan wants to be. But that’s not who Dan is. Dan is a wonderful human being with layers and teddies stashed at the bottom of his wardrobe and he has secrets and wishes and dreams and flaws. And all that: it’s Phil’s. He’s been taking it for granted, but it’s still there. Dan is still there, and he’s hugging Phil from behind and kissing his ear and explaining somewhat reluctantly that the toy is from back when he was a baby, that he couldn’t go to sleep without it…until he met Phil. 

“I love you,” Phil whispers. 

And he does. He wants to learn about every layer of Dan’s personality, good and bad and somewhere in between. He wants to know every secret, wish, dream and flaw. He loves Dan for who he is, what he does, and the secrets he keeps. Not his age.

**Author's Note:**

> tumblr: oopshidaisy


End file.
